by Violet Paige
He picked up after three rings.
“Bruin,” he answered, sounding almost like he was expecting me. That was worrisome. “What’s going on? A little birdie told me you’re selling a boat.”
“A little birdie who I wasn’t exactly expecting to run into, either,” I said with a laugh, wondering how much Jillian and Jeff had said to each other.
“Not in the slightest,” Jeff said, and as usual, his tone was harder to read. I had always been the forward and blunt one, while he had always held himself back just enough to be a puzzle when he wanted to be. “And I’ll be honest, I didn’t realize you were in the neighborhood either, much less selling a yacht to me. Just goes to show you how anonymous those agents can make you, you know?”
And how much the two of us have drifted over the years, I thought to myself. If we’d been in touch and I’d known Jeff was looking to buy, the two of us probably would have arranged something already, minus all the formality.
“Totally,” I said, almost trailing off. “It’s crazy. Anyway, if you’ve got your little sister scouting out yachts around town, does that mean you’re here in Ft. Lauderdale?”
“I’m looking out the window of a penthouse at your yacht right now, in fact,” he said, and I glanced out the window with a grin, sticking my middle finger up.
“Yeah? Take a closer look, I’ve got another birdie for you.”
“Oh, fuck you,” he said with a good-natured laugh. Good to know Jeff hadn’t changed that much, either.
“Anyway, I know it’s kind of sudden, but seeing Jillian again made me realize I can’t actually remember the last time we were in the same place together.”
“Yeah,” he said, “I thought about that when Jillian called and told me about seeing you. I didn’t think it had been that long, but it’s got to have been a couple years. Jesus, time flies.”
“Too fast for me,” I said with a chuckle. “So, we’re obviously going to fix that, right?”
“Well—” he started, reluctant as ever to go out, but I interrupted him.
“There’s a sports bar right across from where I’m docked that has wings worth flying out here for, and besides, we’ve got a yacht to talk about,” I said, not taking no for an answer. “Eight sound good?”
“Fine, fine,” Jeff answered. He knew better than to try to turn me down. “We’ll call it a business expense.”
“Damn right we will,” I agreed, and I hung up the phone, a grin on my face.
Between Jillian and Jeff, things were starting to feel like old times again. And that felt good.
“And I remember Rhett rocketing down centerfield, powering through that fall that fucked up his leg as if he was on bath salts.”
Jeff laughed as he knocked back the rest of his beer and listened to me talk. There was a basket full of hot wing bones between us, along with three beer bottles each. When we got to talking about the college days when we were on the soccer field together, we could go on all night, if we weren’t careful.
“I swear that guy’s immune to pain,” Jeff said, shaking his head. “He pulled the same stunt the first game I ever played with him. If I didn’t know him, I’d swear he just made up his injuries to make himself look good.”
“Oh, believe me, the doctor could tell you they were real,” I recalled with a laugh. “After that game, I’ve never seen a medical professional so ready to kill someone.”
“God, with everything we were doing to our bodies back then, I’m amazed we’ve lived to see thirty,” Jeff remarked as the bartender served another round of beers.
“We did miss each other's thirtieth,” I pointed out with a smile, tilting my beer to his, and he met mine with a clink of glass. “They say these are the best years of our lives.”
“They say that every decade,” Jeff said with a snort.
“Then we’ll have damn good lives,” I shot back, and he laughed heartily. “You know, now that we passed the thirty mark, we ought to get together and do another game,” I added, a grin on my face, but Jeff raised an eyebrow at me.
“Trying to get us both killed, huh?”
“Speak for yourself,” I retorted, sitting back and flexing my muscles. “Some of the professionals wish they could have a body like mine. You’re not much worse,” I said, ribbing him both literally and figuratively.
“Yeah, but I don’t brag about it,” he ribbed back. “You always fucking brag.”
“Show me up on the field, and I’ll cut the price of the Mirabella,” I offered, tilting the beer to him again before taking a long drink.
“Now that, you’d regret,” he said, and it was his turn to grin. “Because then, you’d have both your pride and your bank account hurting.”
I punched him in the shoulder as the two of us laughed, then fell quiet for a few moments before I broke the silence. “Seeing the two of you again really does take me back, though,” I said. “Those were some damn good times.” I thought it best not to bring up his parents. Not yet, anyway.
“Yeah, no kidding,” he said, “feels like since I inherited the business, it’s been all work, getting faster and faster around me.”
“Speaking of,” I paused slightly, deciding to push ahead with what was really nagging at the back of my mind, “Jillian? Working for you? That, I wasn’t expecting.”
“I think she’s got you beat as far as seeing unexpected things on that yacht goes,” he explained with a raised eyebrow at me, and I was caught speechless for a moment.
“Shit, she told you about getting a look at me out of the shower, huh?”
“Obviously,” he said with a chuckle. “Don’t worry about it, though. We’re like family, it’s nothing.”
My smile was a little restrained, and I didn’t say anything for a beat too long.
“She’s changed a lot, though, hasn’t she?” I prodded.
“How do you mean?” Jeff asked, taking a swig of his beer and furrowing his eyebrows.
“I guess it’s been different for you, being your sister and all,” I said, knowing I was entering uncertain territory. “You’ve been around her so long you probably haven’t noticed.”
“What are you getting at?” he asked, his voice suddenly sounding a little more guarded. I heard my common sense telling me to slam on the brakes, but I was in too deep now.
“I was just surprised to see her...the way she is now. She was just nineteen last time I saw her, but now? Being an adult, handling business? It’s a good look on her, I’ve got to say.”
“A good look?” he repeated, the humor gone from his tone, and I realized that I had entered forbidden territory here. “Bruin, she’s my sister. My little sitster,” he pressed.
“To you, sure,” I said, although in hindsight those were a pretty poor choice of words, “but all I’m saying is—”
“I hear what you’re saying,” Jeff interrupted me. “And I really don’t want to hear it. She thinks of you as a brother, Bruin. Let’s keep it that way. Besides, you have...” he paused. “There’s a lot going on with you at home in Santa Barbara. My little sister’s in a different world.”
There were a lot of words on the tip of my tongue before I bit them back with all the willpower I had. If it had been anyone else, I’d have argued, especially since he’d brought up my home life. But Jeff and I had history, we had this yacht deal, and I knew I’d struck a nerve.
“That all came out wrong. Forget I said anything,” I said, holding up my beer. “Anyway, what were you saying earlier about Rhett and that trip to Dublin?”
After a moment’s hard stare at me, Jeff finally relented and clinked bottles with me with a smile before launching into one of his own stories about our old teammate. The night went on with the two of us chatting about old times and old glories, but from then on, I was just going through the motions.
I knew that Jillian was just going to keep tearing me up without even being there.
Fuck, this was going to be rough.
8
Jillian
The next week flew by in a rush of color and sound. Rolling wheels. The flutter of paperwork. The click of my briefcase closing. The annoying beep-beep-beep of my hotel room alarm clock and the crackling of coffee percolating across the room as I put on my makeup each morning.
Luckily, I hardly had to deal with Bruin himself at all. His broker was a perpetually exhausted man in his fifties named Robert Browne. He had what seemed like permanent five o’clock shadow and bags under his eyes. He walked with a slight stoop and rarely smiled. I got the sense that he was more of a wrangler, a handler for Bruin, rather than a consultant. It had to be hard work, dealing with such a rowdy, reckless guy. If Bruin was anything like the way he used to be when he was in college, he was a lot of work.
Sometimes my parents even warned Jeff about hanging out with him, afraid that he would be a bad influence on my brother. And to be fair, he kind of was. Jeff was a straight-A student when Bruin suddenly transferred over to Harvard in the middle of their freshman year. They were put together as roommates, two guys with opposite personalities. At the time, Jeff was a studious, quiet guy who was wholly focused on his schoolwork. He was dedicated to graduating with honors, because that was exactly what our parents expected of him. And of me, too.
At first, Bruin and Jeff didn’t get along well. Jeff was an early riser, getting up at five in the morning for a brisk run before coming back to get ready for his classes. Bruin, on the other hand, routinely overslept and missed classes. He stayed out late and stumbled into their room buzzed and sloppy, making a lot of noise. He brought home girls. He played his music loudly. He was a thorn in my brother’s side for the first semester they spent together. Jeff would call me on his run in the morning to complain about the awful asshole the university paired him with. At that point, I had never met Bruin. I knew him only by name and reputation. And to be quite honest, I wasn’t his biggest fan.
But then, when the second semester began, something changed. One night, Bruin convinced Jeff to go out to a bar with him. And I don’t know what all happened that night, but after that, they were suddenly best friends. They influenced each other, in a lot of ways. Bruin stopped skipping his morning class. Jeff started actually going out and having fun instead of being cooped up in his dorm studying all the time. They quickly became best friends, and before we knew it, Jeff brought Bruin back for Thanksgiving, to meet all of us. Apparently, Bruin’s family was never very close. And as soon as Bruin walked through those doors, I was a goner.
He was, and still remained, the hottest guy I had ever seen.
He walked into the room and my heart skipped a beat. No, several beats. I forgot to breathe for a moment. I felt my jaw drop and my eyes go wide. I was just a high school student, still wearing braces and struggling to figure out how to dress for my newly changing body. In short, I was a hot mess. It was glaringly obvious to everyone that I was smitten. Infatuated. Over Thanksgiving dinner, I could hardly eat. I was too afraid I might accidentally spill gravy on my shirt or drop a biscuit on the floor. I was so distracted by the hulking hunk of a college guy sitting across from me that I could hardly hear anything being said. Apparently, Bruin reined himself in and was for the most part respectful and dutiful. But my parents were still wary of him. They could see the sparks in his eyes, and they were worried he would knock Jeff off his A-game. Still, Jeff was pretty much an adult by then and they couldn’t stop him from being friends with somebody.
And they couldn’t stop me from having a crush on him.
Today, I was finished with my work and back in my hotel room. I had ordered a cobb salad and a glass of red wine from room service and was busy running a hot bubble bath while I watched some stupid cooking show on TV. I decided to FaceTime Anna Kate, since I hadn’t talked to anyone back home since I left.
To my relief, she picked up on the first ring, and her pretty face popped up on the screen.
“Jillian. Hey,” she said cheerily.
She was wearing an apron, her kitchen cabinets visible behind her. Much like Jeff and Bruin, Anna Kate and I had been friends ever since we roomed together at college. Even though we no longer lived together, of course, she still lived in Atlanta, so we hung out whenever we actually had time out of our busy schedules. Anna was a pastry chef for a very successful indie baking company, a job that took up a lot of her time.
“Hey, Anna Kate,” I said, sitting on the bed. “What’s up?”
She gestured toward the kitchen behind her. “Just working on a new recipe for work. As always. I’m covered in flour.”
She moved the phone so I could see the front of her apron smattered with white. I laughed.
“Cute,” I said. “That’s a good look.”
“Thanks, I made it myself.” She giggled. “What are you doing? And where are you? Still in Florida?”
“Yep,” I groaned.
“Lucky.”
“Lucky?” I retorted. “Anna Kate, it’s like ninety degrees here.”
“In November?”
“Yes. This place is like hell, but hotter.”
“It snowed here this morning,” she said. “Just for a couple minutes, but still.”
“You had snow? I can’t believe it. Ugh, I miss that,” I said. “I can’t wait to get out of here. I’m doing this deal for Jeff, or else I wouldn’t be in this muggy mess.”
“Oh, really? That’s nice of you.”
“Yeah, well, it’s turning out to be a pain in my ass,” I lamented. “You’ll never guess who the seller is.”
“Who?” she said, turning to stir some concoction on the stove.
“Bruin Kincaid.”
She stopped stirring and looked back into the camera with her mouth open in a wide O.
“What? Bruin? That Bruin?” she repeated.
“Anna Kate. What other Bruins do we know?” I said, deadpan.
“Good point. But why? And how? And what does he look like nowadays?” she asked.
“Still hot.”
“Hotter than Florida?” she chirped.
I sighed. “Way hotter than Florida.”
“Well, what’s the deal? Are you going to buy his boat? And more importantly, are you finally going to ask him out?” she prodded.
I shook my head.
“God, no. Anna Kate, he’s still the same womanizing jerk he used to be. Just older. And sexier than he was back then. Everything I should avoid.”
“That’s saying something.”
“I know,” I said weakly. “He was always hot. But now he’s, like, ripped. I mean, really. He’s definitely been hitting the gym. Hell, he might be living at the gym.”
“Ooh. How do you know that? What is he wearing, a sheer tank top?” she asked, confused. I took a deep breath.
“Here’s the thing,” I began slowly, “I might have… uh… seen more than that.”
“Jillian.”
“I saw his… everything.”
“Jillian!” she gasped. “Did you fuck him already?”
“No! God, no. I just happened to walk in on him while he was naked. Just out of the shower. In his bedroom on the yacht. Right after he slept with some girl. They were showering off together. It was horrible,” I explained.
Anna Kate clucked her tongue.
“Oh, that’s so awkward. But did you see his—”
“Yes,” I answered.
“And it was?”
“Massive, yes.” There was no way to deny the size of that man’s cock.
“Jillian, you have to sleep with him. You know that, right?” she said, biting her lip. “This is a high priority now.”
“What? No. That’s fucking crazy, Anna Kate. I can’t sleep with my brother’s friend. First of all, I’m way over that crush, and second of all, Jeff would kill me. He’s in town and you know how protective he is. He’d flip his shit. Third of all, Bruin has never been interested in me. He just likes teasing me,” I explained. “Like a kid sister.”
“You saw his package. You’re already halfway there.”
“That
’s not how it works,” I laughed.
She shrugged. Something started beeping and she whipped around to look at a timer on the counter.
“Oh! Shit, those are the soufflés. Look, I have to go. But seriously, you should go for it. I mean, you’re both adults. You’re both stuck there in Florida. Go on and scratch that itch, Jillian. You’ve had that itch for, like, a million years. Just do it.”
I rolled my eyes. “Go get your soufflés. I’m going to go now.”
“Do it,” she commanded with a smile just before she hung up.
I stared at the phone, shaking my head. It was tempting to try, but I was smarter than that. A guy like Bruin would never go for a girl like me. I was sure he still saw me as that awkward little fourteen-year-old who had a crush on him.
Nope. A guy like Bruin would just break my heart, and I just couldn’t afford that.
Not now. Not ever.
9
Bruin
As I jogged down the concrete along the side of the road that hugged the shoreline, I couldn’t help but feel a little smug. Last night, I’d exchanged emails with some of my colleagues in Edinburgh, one of them complaining about the cold rain.
Sure, Florida got cold, but with it being later November and still hovering around the upper seventies, I couldn’t complain. It was perfect jogging weather.
I’d been jogging since before the sun rose. There was something beautiful and addicting about getting up before almost everyone else in the city, hitting the streets with nothing but an outfit and a phone, and just going.
I monitored every step my long legs took, felt every shift in my weight as I ran. Over the years, I’d come to make my cardio workouts as controlled as my breathing, and my routine was almost as regular. Years of soccer in and before college made it an essential part of my life. Even when I was in countries that were totally foreign to me, even if I was visiting for just one morning for a business meeting, I’d try to find time to go running and explore the area just before dawn.
